Eureka! winner: Mayo Clinic

Although colorectal cancer is highly treatable if found early, it’s the second-leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. because nearly half of all adults over 50 haven’t been screened as recommended.

However, those numbers may be about to change dramatically, thanks to an innovation by Dr. David Ahlquist, a gastroenterologist at Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, and health sciences firm Exact Sciences, which has a collaboration and license agreement with Mayo.

Ahlquist is co-inventor of the Cologuard test, a noninvasive, pre-cancer and cancer detection test that can be used at home. This could provide a significant boost to screening, because it removes many of the factors that keep people from being tested.

“People are sometimes unwilling to undergo an invasive test, like a colonoscopy, because they have preconceptions about what it will be like, or they feel they’re too busy to take the time away from work,” Ahlquist said. “Cologuard is a test that will remove those concerns.”

Also, the detection rates for Cologuard are similar to those reported for colonoscopies, according to results published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The innovation has been more than 20 years in development, but advances within the past four years have brought the product into the marketplace, Ahlquist said.

Exact Sciences is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and it expects a ruling by early summer. In an unusual move, Medicare is doing a parallel review, to speed the product’s time to market.

“The test has some disruptive elements when it comes to cancer screening,” Ahlquist said. “We hope it will be seen as patient-friendly, with no prep, diet or medication restrictions. It’s a noninvasive test that could have a significant impact on the screening and prevention numbers.”

Cologuard’s promise for health care disruption caught the attention of the Eureka! Awards judges immediately, said judge Lindsay Sokolowski, a shareholder at Fredrikson & Byron. “One of Mayo Clinic’s hallmarks is its continual pursuit of innovations in the health care field. The invention of an at-home, noninvasive test to prescreen for colon cancer is not only innovative, it’s an actual life saver.”